Totally Random Post

I just spotted a flyer that reminded me of last week Friday, so thought I'd post. During the day last Friday I mentioned to my husband that I should figure out something for dinner and head to the grocery store. He said "Oh, I forgot to tell you. One of the guys in my Bible study group is having a fundraising pasta dinner tonight. He and his wife have 2 little girls and are in the process of adopting three little boys from Ethiopia. He handed out flyers." So I said we should go, as I love pasta and I'm a softie for anything adoption related (and I'd be off the hook for making dinner!).

As I was out and about running errands I started to have second thoughts. I didn't even know these people. Chris barely knew the guy. It would probably be a lot of family and friends -- we would be out of place and look awkward. And besides, I knew that Chris didn't really want to go, he would rather just chill after a hard week of work. So when I got home I told Chris we didn't have to go. But after a few minutes, he said "No, we probably should really go. How could I look that guy in the eye each week if I ducked his fundraiser." Okay, not totally enthusiastic, but it was decided we would go.

When we got there, we were warmly greeted by THE GUY (I don't even know his name) and directed to the tables of food. We waved to one guy we happened to know who was helping in the kitchen (turns out he and the guy are best friends). Throughout the room were balloons, photos, facepainting, and maps and trivia about Ethiopia -- a real celebration feeling. There were people everywhere, many young families and lots of kids. We found a spot to park ourselves and quietly ate our meal -- we didn't recognize a soul.

AND THEN....I looked up and standing and talking to someone a little ways in front of us was my good, good friend Ann -- a big smile on her face as usual. It took a little theatrics to finally get her attention, but she spotted me and made a beeline right over. "We really don't even hardly know these people," I sheepishly told her. "We just thought we should cause the guy's in Chris' Bible study. How are you connected to this?"

(AND HERE'S THE GOOD PART!) Ann says "Oh, we don't know either of them at all. Never met them." HUH?....."In our small group, we were talking about random acts of kindness and decided not just to do them, but to do them for complete strangers. Someone in our group knew about this from their adoption support group. So here we all are." UGGG.... My friend Ann is SOOO awesome!

So what about you? Have you been involved in any random acts of kindness? I'd love it if you'd share. And I know we can often be hesitant to talk about things we've done. So here's the deal, feel free to phrase it as "I have this FRIEND who....". Chances are you really DO have an awesome friend like I do, so we won't know the difference. And you even have permission to embellish with any fun details you wish (my husband says the key to believable lies is in the details you add -- WAIT! how does he know so much about good lying, hmmm.....).

So, anyway, I have this friend who....

Midge